He told me that the Lapps are very fond of stimulating drinks; they think nothing of drinking fifteen or twenty cups of coffee a day, while their consumption of punch is on a vast scale. It is no uncommon thing to see numbers of helplessly drunk natives in the streets of Tromsö, especially when the sale of reindeer flesh has been profitable. Yet robbery and, indeed, crime in general are practically unknown among them; the innate honesty of the people is quite extraordinary. The colonel gave me an example. “As, perhaps, you may have heard,” he said, “I am very keen on hunting both the wolf and the bear. On one occasion, accompanied by a Laplander, I was out after an enormous she-wolf, but the animal succeeded in completely baffling us. Finally, despairing of success, I abandoned the pursuit. A few days subsequently I was much surprised to receive a visit from my Lapp. With him he brought the wolf’s skin, which he insisted on my accepting; he had come up with the creature and killed it after a long, weary chase of many hours. I told him that the skin belonged to him, but he would listen to no argument. ‘You must be paid back for the trouble you have had,’ he kept repeating, with a smile. ‘It would not be fair for me to keep all the advantage for myself.’ [Illustration: A LAPP MOTHER AND CHILD IN HOLIDAY ATTIRE--SO TIGHTLY SWATHED IS THE INFANT IN ITS CURIOUS “CASE” THAT IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE POOR LITTLE MITE TO GROW. _From a Photograph._] “But go to the country and see things for yourself,” concluded my friend. “Try and speak with Mickel Nilsson Nia; but, above all things, make up your mind to practise patience. Nobody in Lapland appreciates the value of time in the slightest degree; a Lapp thinks nothing of turning up at an appointment six hours too soon or six hours too late. You must also be careful to be invariably most scrupulously polite to them. Their pride is boundless; they are persuaded they are almost divine. Their account of their origin is that, God having decided to submerge the world in the Deluge, everything living was drowned by the heavy rain, with the exception of two Laplanders, a man and a woman. These two God took under his charge and led to Vasso-Varra, where the couple separated, the man proceeding in one direction, the woman in another. For three years they pursued their respective paths, and at the end of that time found themselves again at Vasso Varra. On their travels neither had encountered a living soul. Three separate times did they repeat the experience. When nine years had elapsed they came to the conclusion that in the whole world they were the only inhabitants, and consequently they decided to marry one another. They had a very large family, and to-day the whole earth is peopled with their children; those who do not live in Lapland are degenerates!” [Illustration: A TYPICAL LAPP PEASANT. _From a Photograph._]